Module 1: Map your journey

Test your ideas and turn them into a business.

LECTURE 1.1

Course introduction / Finding and validating your idea

Learn the scope of the Entrepreneurship 101 course and how it can help you build a business. Hear why entrepreneurship matters so much in today’s world, what makes entrepreneurs different (and successful) and how you can come up with your next big idea (or test the one you have).

The resources below the video offer a foundation upon which you can build your knowledge and skills in these areas.

Different types of entrepreneurship

In this session of Entrepreneurship 101, the speakers describe the different types of business structures an entrepreneur might adopt. And we discuss some of the early questions that an entrepreneur must ask before committing to a business:

Will the business be a for-profit enterprise, a not-for-profit or somewhere in between?

What are the different requirements and resources necessary for the selected enterprise model?

What type of financing would be best to target: equity, debt, grant funding or a combination of all three?

Entrepreneurial ecosystem and legal fundamentals

Learn about the legal and tax considerations of starting a business, including how to register and structure your business. Emphasis on the importance of understanding the entire “ecosystem” of your business, including corporate organization, intellectual property, contracts and more.

The resources below the video offer a foundation upon which you can build your knowledge and skills in these areas.

Introduction to entrepreneurial management

Starting a new business is not the same as running an operating business. As Steve Blank puts it “a startup is an idea looking for a business model.” Over the last decade a number of management practices have emerged that recognize the particular challenges facing new ventures.

In particular, Blank’s Customer Development Model and the related “Lean” movement are increasingly popular with entrepreneurs of all sorts. Session 4 of Entrepreneurship 101 will introduce and define the key concepts of the new entrepreneurial management practices and illustrate how startups can utilize them at any step of their process.

Value proposition

We explore the process of creating a crisp and concise value proposition for your startup. Learn how to answer the essential question, “what is the value you bring to your customers?”―without getting into the details of your technology.

Formulating a good value proposition is an essential step for any startup. It lies at the core of many skills an entrepreneur needs to develop, such as conducting a market analysis, creating a business model, finding funding and delivering an investor or customer pitch.

Product development

Converting an idea or even a lab prototype into a real, customer-ready product is no simple task. We discuss how to turn your idea into a successful product by following the “V-model” of concept development. We also cover how to differentiate the steps of product development, including research, design, implementation, testing, verification, validation, operations and maintenance.